


Five Times Someone Visits Killmonger in Prison

by storiesfortravellers



Category: Black Panther (2018), Marvel Cinematic Universe, X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Developing Friendships, Gen, Genius Shuri (Marvel), Humor, Imprisonment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-27
Updated: 2018-04-27
Packaged: 2019-04-28 11:02:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14447907
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/storiesfortravellers/pseuds/storiesfortravellers
Summary: AU Set post-Black Panther. Some serious, some humorous.





	Five Times Someone Visits Killmonger in Prison

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Пять раз, когда кто-то навещает Киллмонгера в тюрьме](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15815562) by [Heidel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Heidel/pseuds/Heidel)



Erik wakes up in a cell, looks down at his chest. 

A scar.

He looks around and sees glass walls, a slight glow of blue. High tech, it seems.

He senses a presence behind those walls.

“Bastard. Too worthless and soft to kill me?” Erik says, sneering his lip into sharp curl. 

T’Challa walks forward and appears; he’s standing behind the clear walls, almost certainly some kind of tech that Erik wouldn’t be able to just pound through.

Erik spits on the floor. “I didn’t want your medicine. You should have respected my wishes.”

T’Challa raises an eyebrow. “I was going to. And then I thought ‘Has this man ever respected _my_ wishes?’ And I decided this would be better.” 

Erik stares at him. He’d find this shit amusing maybe, if he weren’t pissed off. If he weren’t trapped in cage like a dog.

Erik puts on his best predator’s face. “You’re brave. Coming here to gloat. You probably think I can’t get in your head any more.” He grins.

T’Challa smiles, all faux innocence. “I am not here to gloat. I am here to bring you your reading.” He pushes a button and a book drops down from the ceiling onto Erik’s bed. 

“You can’t be serious.”

“Oh, I’m sorry – do you have something else to do?” 

Erik narrows his eyes. “Yeah, killing you.”

“Unlikely in your current position.”

“What are you doing here?” Erik yells suddenly. 

T’Challa walks closer. Erik would do anything to be on the other side of this wall, his hands around T’Challa’s neck.

“I am here to apologize, on behalf of Wakanda, for abandoning you.” 

T’Challa just stands there, then, looking so sincere that Erik wants to beat his skull in.

T’Challa speaks again, and Erik convinces himself that it’s because the guy loves to hear himself talk and definitely not because Erik has frozen. “That book is a history of our people. You are Wakandan. I thought it would interest you. It is time for me to go, but I hope you have a restful night, cousin.”

Erik lunges at the walls, screaming, expecting full well to be electrically shocked or whatever else they do with walls. Instead, he finds the wall just bounces him back to the center of the room. 

T’Challa doesn’t even turn around.

-

Erik is treated humanely. The food, the bed, are good. He remembers enough Wakandan to read the books he gets. Art and literature and history and religion, and all sorts of bullshit that’s of no use to him. He dreams of his father all the time, and his father never looks disappointed in his failure, so he wonders if they’re drugging him but he never finds any evidence. 

T’Challa visits him every day. He’s a self-righteous, weak fool, and Erik tells him so every time. He tells T’Challa that he is no hero, no king, that he is a cruel piece of shit for hoarding Wakanda’s well-being and not sharing it with his people around the world. 

T’Challa keeps coming.

Until one day, when the girl is there instead. The smart sister. The child who has the world’s greatest technology as her favorite toy.

“Hello, murderer,” she says cheerfully. 

“You should know better than to come here,” he says menacingly.

She shakes her finger. “Be nice, or I’ll make your toilet overflow at the worst possible moment,” she says laughing. 

“Where is your brother? Dead I hope?”

“Aww, you miss him. How sweet. He’s busy opening up Wakanda’s first refugee resettlement program. So he made me come here. “ 

“Wakanda is opening up to the world?” Erik says, his breath catching. 

“Yes.”

“Then T’Challa has been listening to me after all.”

Shuri looks at him for a long moment.

Then she snorts loudly, bursting into laughter. “My brother has been listening to Nakia. His girlfriend. Perhaps if you were prettier….”

“I’m plenty pretty,” Erik says, and Shuri laughs even louder. Erik is really starting to hate this girl. 

“You remember Nakia?” Shuri adds, “The one who wants to share our achievements with the world except without the killing everyone and disrespecting our religion and traditions and betraying our people and generally being a horrific dickhead. Yes, I can see why you thought you were her. It’s like you’re twins.”

“You are an obnoxious child,” Erik says, as menacingly as he can. 

She smiles with pride, as if she has been hearing this her whole life. (She has, Erik realizes; she is literally a princess, and she couldn’t care less if people find her obnoxious). She pushes a button and a video appears in the wall. The video is of a baby rhinoceros and two puppies chasing a butterfly while a Celine Dion song plays.

“I hear you complain about the books, so I thought I’d bring something different ,” Shuri says, giggling again.

“Take it away. I don’t want this crap.”

She shrugs and says, “It will only play fifty more times. Have a nice night, murderer.”

She walks out, and Erik can’t even decide which words he wants to yell at her before she is gone.

T’Challa, thankfully, is back the next day. 

“Your sister is an insufferable smartass,” Erik grumbles.

T’Challa smiles wide. “Yes, the two of you have much in common.”

\--

 

“Hey, Auntie.”

The queen mother glares. “My son has shown you mercy. But you should know that I advocated for you to be executed.”

“Then why are you here?” 

She looks at him like he’s stupid. “Clearly, it is not safe to house with other prisoners. And due to your treason, we only trust a small number of people to control the technology of your cell, and most of these people are very busy.”

“So?” he asks. “Why does someone bother me every day?” 

That look again. “What do you expect us to do?” she says, voice clipped, “Leave you with no human contact?”

He stares at her, confused.

She realizes that that’s exactly what he expects. “That’s barbaric!” 

Erik has spent many, many days of his life with no human contact. Sometimes locked up by enemies. Sometimes he would go so many weeks without light or voices that he longed for time when the men who ripped apart his fingers for entertainment would return. 

“Leave,” he says, angrily. 

“You think we would do that to you? We might execute you, but we do not torture. You would know that if you knew anything of Wakanda.”

She stands there, not moving, waiting for his response.

He wants to will her to leave, but he knows he can’t. He turns around and sits on the bed, his back to her. It’s a retreat, but he tells himself it’s just pretending to retreat. 

She leaves, eventually. 

He pulls out the latest history book from the pile and starts to read, purely out of spite.

\--

Killmonger wakes to the sound of the front wall crashing and sees a man standing there. Floating there, actually.

“Why are you here?” Killmonger asks.

“I’m Magneto.”

“Yeah, the outfit gave it away. Why are you here?”

“I wanted to see if you were a mutant. I’ve seen you fighting in your suit.”

“I’m not one.”

“You can tell me.”

“I’m not one.”

“Explain how you held your own against 4 Dora Milaje,” Magneto says.

Yeah. Because Erik is going to tell this man about the sacred secrets of the Black Panther’s strength. 

Not that he cares about that stupid tradition. 

“I’m not one. Just a badass.”

Magneto looks disappointed. “Fine. But I’m going to break you out anyway.” 

“And why would you do that?” 

“Because I know you’re right,” Magneto says, and gives him a long stare. 

Killmonger has heard of him, has heard of the numbers on his arm. He nods.

Magneto cracks the ceiling open and floats them both out of there. They land on the roof and look at the city beneath them.

Magneto raises his arms and Killmonger waits to see the results. 

Nothing happens. 

Magneto tries again.

Killmonger hears Shuri giggling from behind. 

“How?!” Magneto yells.

Shuri does probably the worst impression Killmonger has ever heard: “OOH I’m the big bad scary Magneto. It never occurred to me that someone could just create a pocket field around me that neutralizes all magnetic fields in my proximity. And I like to dress like an acrobat clown!”

“What the hell’s an acrobat clown?” Magneto says.

“Don’t take it personally, she’s like this with everyone,” Killmonger says. He feels oddly protective of Shuri, and it leaves a bad taste in his mouth. 

“Thank you for your help, Princess,” a man says, moving next to Shuri.

“Charles,” Magneto says with an eyeroll and a tone that makes Killmonger think Magneto has his own T’Challa. 

But Shuri pushes a button then and Killmonger feels himself go sleepy. He wakes up back in his cell, walls in place.

\--

_Years later…_

“What have you come to bore me with today?” Erik says. He doesn’t bother to look up from his book. 

T’Challa answers: “Would you like to go free?”

Erik rolls his eyes, then looks up at T’Challa’s face and sees that he’s serious.

“Why would you do that?” Erik says.

“I’m not saying I would. I’m asking if you want that.”

“That’s stupid. You should take threats to your kingdom more seriously.”

T’Challa sits on his bed. “Yes, you tell me that often. You have become a very helpful advisor.”

“What are you doing?”

“I am asking you, cousin, if you would like to be free?” 

“And leave Wakanda?”

T’Challa blinks, just for a second, but Erik sees it, sees that T’Challa is hurt by the thought that Erik would want to leave. 

_Hurt._

There was a time when hurting T’Challa would have been the sweetest feeling he could hope for.

T’Challa swallows, says, “Yes, if you want, you can of course leave. That would be your choice.”

Erik waits, then shrugs. “Not sure. I might want to stick around so that Shuri doesn’t think she’s the family chess champion.”

“Shuri beats you nine out of ten times.”

“That’s not – just shut up.”

T’Challa laughs, and Erik manages a smile too.

“Are you serious about this?” Erik asks.

“You would be closely supervised for a long time.”

Erik nods. 

“I shall bring it up at the council tomorrow.”

“They won’t like it.”

“They trust me.”

“And you trust me?”

T’Challa shrugs. “I don’t know. But I have learned that things cannot stay still forever. You have to move forward.”

Erik pauses. “I don’t want to be king. If that’s what you’re wondering. I’m not after your throne.”

“Good. Because you can’t have it.”

“And what exactly am I going to do out there?”

T’Challa shrugs. “We’re getting the Olympics in Wakanda next year. There is much to be done to prepare.”

“Okoye’s finally getting her Olympics?” 

“Like I said, moving forward,” T’Challa says, and they both laugh. 

“All right, cousin. Let’s try it,” Erik says. He feels… nervous for some reason.

T’Challa crosses his arms in front of his chest, and Erik salutes back.

**Author's Note:**

> For Trope Bingo.


End file.
